It's been 18 months since we last headed up to Telapak Buruk in Negri Sembilan, so we figured it was time to visit again.

Up at 05:00am, we arrived nice and early only to be met with a misty hill. Nevertheless, we headed up some way, parked up and started birding.  It was frankly a bit slow to start with, but we struck lucky once the sun broke through the mist and a bird tsunami hit us, comprising of Arctic Warblers, Eastern Crowned Warblers, White-bellied Yuhina's, Scarlet Minivets, Mountain Fulvetta's and a Sultan Tit. 

Even during this bird wave, we were surrounded by other birds, such as the Rufous-fronted Babbler, Leafbirds, Black-throated Sunbirds and more.

A familiar call came a bit further up the road, that of a Silver-breasted Broadbill. It's been ages since we last saw this bird and always a delight to do so. A bit of back-light, and not a great angle, but we didn't stick around long to shoot more as we've got some fairly ok shots of him already from previous sightings.

Further on up the hill, another familiar call came from above, a perched Mountain Imperial-pigeon.  We could hear the reply call of another bird higher up the road.  Huge birds and unmistakable when seen in flight.

It quietened the higher up we went, and as it was almost lunch time by the time we reached the summit, we slowly made our way back down.  

On our way, we saw a shadow passing through the forest to our right and all of a sudden a Crested Serpent-eagle flew across the road in front of us and off into the forest in search of lunch.  We often see them soaring above all over Malaysia, but to see them really hunting for food is really cool.

Further on down, through the windows, we heard a few calls at one place and got out to investigate.

A Hill Blue-flycatcher perched vocalising.  Finally, I can add the male to the tick, as I'd only seen the female (Jas had seen both already).  Photography was difficult as he was mostly perched in places difficult to see, but managed to get a couple of ID shots.

This one looks like he's sitting on the Devil's Fork.  Maybe an advert for Gordon Ramsey's "Hell's Kitchen"?

All in all, a great morning out, having seen a few mammals too such as the Plantain Squirrel, Gray-bellied Squirrel and White-thighed Surili.

Our bird list came to 44 species (seen & heard), which puts our Malaysian year list of birds seen to:

John: 185

Jas: 188

Here is our list of birds seen today.

Jas and I took another trip up north, taking advantage of a 3-day weekend we headed right the way up to Perlis, Kedah and Penang.

Our birding started in Hutan Lipur Bukit Wang, Kedah.  

Bukit Wang is a fabulous patch of forest near to the town of Jitra.  It's not a particularly big place, but hosts a great list of birds, mammals and other wildlife.  The problem is that all of the surrounding forests have been cleared, or are in the process of being cleared with what appears to be slash and burn techniques in places, so, where else can the wildlife go?

I'm reminded of the situation in Kinabatangan, where the populations of certain species seems unrealistic. I assume that after some time, the populations will settle to a self-sustaining level (given the chance).

The weather was absolutely glorious, the air fresh and fragrant. Sheer bliss.

Our morning started off with a Blue-crowned Hanging-parrot, a Black-thighed Falconet feeding on a dragonfly, and things got better as the morning progressed.

Amongst the forest sounds, we heard Bushy-crested Hornbills in the distance, the chorus of Gibbons (possibly White-handed, or Agile), Lineated Barbets and the sounds of the stream running along the base of the hill. 

We took a walk amongst the shady trees besides the stream and were blessed with a birdwave consisting of Yuhina's, Arctic Warblers, Eastern Crowned Warblers and amongst them were a couple of Asian Paradise-flycatchers, both Brown and White morphs. Lovely!

A bit of raptor activity above us included Japanese Sparrowhawks, Black Baza's and Crested Serpent-eagles.

Perhaps the creme de la creme was the Malaysian Honeyguide.  We had been walking along the trail and heard the call, looked way up and there she was, about 15m up perched and calling. So lucky were we!

Here is our total bird list for Bukit Wang, as we did go back again on Sunday afternoon too, so a few more sightings added.

Sunday, we got up super early and headed north to Cuping, Perlis to the Sugar Plantations in search of raptors.

As soon as we arrived, the sun was just peeking up above the horizon and the light was gloriously warm, although still a bit dark. 

Upon arriving, we immediately saw three male Pied Harriers flying by closely to our car. I didn't get a chance for a shot at that moment, but figured, if the morning starts off so well, I'll have no problem getting more shots later. What an idiot! We didn't see any more male PH's after that

The habitat around Cuping has changed considerably since we were last there.  Much of the surrounding sugar cane plantation has been converted to Rubber Plantations, so vast tracts of land are now brown dirt with small rubber saplings.  

While ultimately, this area will be useless for birding once the trees have grown up, it did give opportunity to sight a Common Kestrel, and subsequently, two more. Cool!  My chance to add it to the Malaysian List.  I'm now one less bird behind Jas as she'd already seen it on a previous trip to Perlis (without me!).

Here is our list of birds seen that day in Cuping, Perlis.

After Cuping, we headed further north up to Tasik Timah Tasoh to try our luck with the Bronze-winged and Pheasant-tailed Jacana's, after all, Jasmine's got them both on her list, and I don't, so need to catch up with her some more now that the Kestrel's been struck off.

It was blisteringly hot when we got there, and very dry, as there's been no rain up north for quite a while. We parked up at the lake side, got out the stools and decided to have a coffee under a tree before birding.  Jas put up her bins quickly for a scan, and well well well, there's a couple of Jacana's right there.  Drop the coffee! We got the scope out, made our way to the edge of the water and homed in on the two birds across the lake.  Great! A pair of adult Bronze-winged Jacana's.  

Lifer for me

They hung around for a ridiculous amount of time so we had a great opportunity to study them.  One was clearly larger than the other.  We've not seen any note that suggests dimorphism but it seems the logical explanation as both displayed adult plumage.

Lucky! Lifer after less than 1 minute of arriving.  We did stay for quite a long time to see if the Pheasant-tailed Jacana would make an appearance, but he's left me with an excuse to go back another day.

Here's a poor shot of the Bronze-winged, as the sun was right above and the air was rippling with heat.

Also on the lake were three Little Grebe's.

We had a couple of by-passes from an Osprey which was also pretty cool, but again, as the light wasn't conducive to photography, I had to accept defeat in being able to get a quality shot and that I will get one (some day).

Here is our bird list for the day at Tasik Timah Tasoh, Perlis.

Turning out to be a pretty good trip so far eh!

Our last stop involved setting off from Jitra early Monday morning and heading for the paddyfields on mainland Penang at Kubang Semang in search of the Imperial Eagle, and the Asian Openbill.

We drove the car along the track leading through the paddyfields, spotted the Imperial Eagle almost straight away and found a place to park up so we could scope it. I opened up the boot of the car and as I reached in to take the tripod, something shot past me and plunged amongst the barang-barang. Startled, I looked around and a Sparrowhawk was putting on the brakes so as to avoid hitting me. He then flew off and perched in a nearby tree.

Curious, I looked back into the boot of the car to see a tail sticking out from beneath a bag. I reached in and gently picked up the bird, a Zebra Dove, still alive and conscious, I gently held it for a while and studied it. A small mark on the top of it's head suggests the Sparrowhawk had managed to clip it but the wound didn't look too serious.

I didn't take any shots as I honestly didn't want to cause undue stress to the lovely little bird. I placed him gently on the tailgate of the boot and he just sat there quietly.

OK, there's an Imperial Eagle to watch!  So I rushed around to the front of the car where Jas was studying it with her bins.  I got a couple of shots, although frankly, we were miles away from it so he's merely a few pixels.

After a while, I went back to the boot to take out the tripod and our little friend was still sitting there quietly. I sat and watched him some more, and he obviously felt ok to leave as he leapt up and gave a few flaps and headed for the ground besides the rice field.

The area is stuffed with great birds.  Herons, Egrets, Snipes, Sandpipers, Kingfishers and heaps more.

Perhaps the best photographic opportunity was of a female Pied Harrier flying around. Managed to get a few shots of her.

After driving around for a few hours, we were about to head off (without seeing the Openbill), but just before we hit the main road, woohoo, there he was, perched atop a tree.  The poor chap is down here in Malaysia all by himself.

This was a lifer for Jasmine, and a country lifer for me as I've seen them before in Thailand and India.

Again, poor luck with the lighting, it was almost noon so very harsh for photography, but what to do?

Here is our trip Bird List for Kubang Semang, Penang.

Well! What a trip, we've managed to push our year lists up to;

Jasmine 173

John 169 (closing in on her)

Our Malaysian Lists have also finally gone over the 500 threshold.  Gets tougher and tougher to add a new one, but for this trip, we managed quite a few.

Luck was truly with us this weekend, as given the fact that the Hindu festival of Taipusam would have meant high volumes of traffic all over the country, we didn't get stuck in any jams at all. 

We headed up north on Sunday for a change of scenery.

It's been a couple of years since we last visited the mining pools of Bidor, and the rice fields of Kampung Chui Chak, and that was cause enough to go.

We started off with the mining pools at Bidor, hoping to get a few birds onto the year list, such as the Long-tailed Parakeet (failed), the Long-tailed Shrike (failed), and perhaps the Black-winged Stilt (argghhh! failed again!).

The area is still as good as it was on previous trips.  Loads of Grey-headed Lapwings, about 100+ seen in one field, together with loads of Pacific Golden Plovers. 

The weather was glorious, however, the birds have managed to find a way of ensuring they are always in front of the rising sun for closer shots making photography a tad difficult in some instances.  Otherwise, the early morning light is just superbly golden.

Not a particularly great shot, but the light was so warm when we saw this Paddyfield Pipit;

While driving around the edge of one of the pools, we noticed a few Common Moorhen's amongst the floating flora, so we just sat and watched them for a while.  They were feeding on the flowers, non-stop, from one to another, they were just eating them up.

We did pretty good at the mining pools, with a list of 38 species, click here to see it.

After the mining pools, we nipped out onto the main road and back along route 58 for about 1km to the F.R.I.M. Field Research Station, or as I like to call it, The Shit Hole with birds, a place where you are free to do anything you want and get away with it, from dumping your unwanted trash, to carrying a shotgun around taking pot-shots at the wildlife, or even trapping birds.

When this pile of rubbish gets too big, it gets pushed into the wonderful lake. Piles of shit like this can be found all around the place.

WTF?

Anyway, we were hoping to get the Cotton Pygmy Goose (failed) as we've seen it here a few times already and would like to get another look at it. Not today.  We still ended up with 19 species, and you can see the list here.

In fact, not much occurring in F.R.I.M. today, so back on the road, we headed further north to Kampung Chui Chak, but not without missing the turn, so we carried on towards Teluk Intan. Just 6km away, we figured we'd gone to far and pulled over. At which point, I looked up to see a Grey-headed Fish-eagle circling around above my car.

With plenty of heavy traffic hurtling past, I had no choice but to stuff the car into the long grass verge, reach for the camera, jump out and start snapping away. Lucky wrong turn!

Here is a link to the larger shot in our gallery.

Satisfied, we made a U-turn and headed back to the rice fields of Chui Chak.

The sun was way up at this point, making photography almost pointless, but our long slow drive all around enabled us to see 27 species.

The place was loaded with White-throated Kingfishers, all very shy.

After a quick picnic underneath a shady tree, and a couple of kerenga bites later, we got back in the car to start making our way out.

All morning above us we saw Brahminy Kites and Black Kites making use of the hot air, soaring high but I always checked them out with the bins, and finally, one raptor caught my eye.  Immediately, it's an Aquila, but looked different to the Greater Spotted Eagle we've seen a few times recently.  This one's vent was whiter, the tail looked longer and the white fringing all the way along it's wings marked a different species.  I stopped the car, leapt out and get a few shots of the backlit bird.

Well well well, a lifer! Steppe Eagle (juvenile)!

Notice the extraordinarily long gape too.

Well.. on that note, we called it a day and headed back.

Good choice of locations for a day out.

Here is the day's bird list for Chui Chak.

This trip has pushed our year lists up to;

Jasmine: 123

John: 118 (still 5 behind her)